Page 48 of Till Death Do Us Part

What results? That I laid the groundwork for death and devastation on a mass scale?

And he’d keep stringing me along forever, promising me a reward if I just kept going a little bit further. Just a little bit more. Forever.

“Dammit,” I choked, pounding my fist on the desk. “Dammit, dammit.”

My chest tightened at the sound of the door opening behind me, and I turned back with a snarky comment ready for Vera, but it wasn’t her. Wasn’t Jenna, either, who I’d half-expected.

No. It was Caitlyn. Leaning hard on the doorframe, her face twisted in pain.

And she pointed a gun at me.

Chapter 21

elaine

I sat at the side of the room, my hands clasped anxiously at my waist, as Jenna, the Blackbird physician, tended to Vera’s injuries.

To my wife.

I still thought I was dreaming. I turned the ring anxiously on my finger, incredulously looking at Vera and repeating in my head my wife, trying to reconcile the two. I knew it didn’t mean anything, but also… I was a married woman now. I had a wife.

And my wife had saved me. Directly, and indirectly, by marrying me.

Vera had a far-off look the whole time, not even flinching at Jenna giving her stitches in her hand, tending to her shoulder, and everything else. She didn’t look at Jenna, didn’t look at me, didn’t say a word.

Finally, when Jenna gave Vera a second alone to sit with it before they continued with the rest of the physical evaluation, she led me out of the room, out to a rear balcony with beautiful ornate railing wrapped in ivy.

“Are you okay?” she said. She was a kindly older woman with dark skin and short hair, wrinkles around her eyes and that kind of soft strength that only came from seeing so many terrible things through that you always knew there was something on the other side. I’d seen the starting roots of that on some of the kids who came into the community events, all too young to start to know that pain.

“You tell me, Doc,” I said, trying for a joking tone. It came out a little shaky. She smiled thinly.

“Physically, you’re fine. Emotionally… hard to say.”

“I’m confused. And scared. And still trying to catch up…” I twisted the ring on my finger. “I never thought getting married would look like this. I mean, who does think that?”

She smiled softly. “One day, you’ll look back on this as a short but intense, deeply strange period of your life. While you’re together with the person you actually do marry.”

I laughed thinly. “It feels weird to be thinking about meeting someone and falling in love with them. I mean, I got married two hours ago.”

She studied me carefully. “You should be careful with Vera, dear.”

“What… do you mean?”

“She’s very charming in her way. But she’s an unpredictable one who would do anything for the mission.” She folded her hands on the rail. “I don’t actually know what her mission is right now, just that you’re central to it. And being central to Vera’s mission is often dangerous.”

“I don’t think she would hurt me,” I said quietly. “She’s had every opportunity to, and all she’s done is keep me safe.”

“And yet I can promise you, if you let yourself grow attached to her, it will hurt you. One way or another. I do care for Vera, deeply. I was the one who took her in when she came to us, after her father’s death, sickly and tortured and barely holding on. There’s a reason they call her the Wolf. There’s something animalistic inside her. Make sure she doesn’t see you as prey.”

Vera had said the same thing last night. I’m a predator… and you’re prey.

But would she really hurt me?

On the surface it seemed obvious. She was an assassin. I was useful. The moment I stopped being useful, surely I should have feared for my life.

But the way she looked at me… like she would kill for me.

I got a shudder.